CENTRE LINES

The ASKEY Family

This column is part of a feature series which focuses on a different Centre County family.

This column's focus is on ASKEY. An effort has been made to identify all persons carrying that name in the 1890 U.S. Census, using the Centre County business directory which was formed from a preliminary review of that census before the larger set of 1890 U.S. Census records was destroyed by fire. (Sadly, the postal directory does not typically provide the ages of females, but it's the best record we've got).

Two books in the Pennsylvania Room of the Centre County Library in Bellefonte apparently deal with the Askey family. They are: Donald Askey's From the Valleys of the Susquehanna: the Story of the First Askey Family in America (State College, Pa.: West Branch Pubs., 1994), and Donald Askey's Background on the Erskine-Askeys (1967).

There are 17 different first-name entries for Askey in John Blair Linn's History of Centre and Clinton County (1883). In addition, there are many references to the name in Beers' Commemorative Biographical Record of Central Pennsylvania (1898).